Walking a Natural Path - Essential for a Reason

Nutrition experts have called it the biggest lie. A lie which has been told for the past 20 years. A lie that is believed by some to be responsible for the deterioration in the nation’s heath.

This lie, which has also become one of the best selling marketing gimmicks, is that fat is bad. This blanket statement has left fats with a black eye. The truth is that all fats are not created equal and the body does not use all fats equally.

Rather, it has been the wrong fats, mainly trans fats, which have been linked to a multitude of degenerative diseases.

But in our quest to lower our fat intake, we have removed the good fats, the natural fats that are crucial for life.

There are 50 essential nutrients that our body cannot make but must derive from food.

Two of these nutrients, called essential fatty acids, or EFAs, come from fats and oils.
One is alpha-linolenic acid more commonly known as omega 3; the other is linoleic acid or omega 6.

These EFAs are found in the type of fat referred to as polyunsaturated fat, which are recognized by being in liquid form at both room temperature and colder temperatures.
Omega-3 fatty acids are found abundantly in walnuts, flax, hemp seed and fish such as salmon, and cod liver oil.

Omega-6 is present in safflower, sunflower and corn oils, sesame seeds and nuts such as brazil and almonds.

These are the “good” fats.

Essential fatty acids nourish your skin, hair, nerves, thyroid, and will actually help you lose weight.

EFA's are also instrumental in digestive and intestinal health, offering soothing, and healing, properties to all aspects of these functions. They strengthen your liver and kidneys, alleviate inflammation, balance water and help lower LDL (the bad) cholesterol.

Essential fatty acids are essential for eye health and also help maintain your hormonal balance and your mental performance.

As a matter of fact, your brain being 60% fat has many processes that can only be completed with EFA’s and requires more Omega 3 than any other system in your body.

Researchers at Tufts University in Boston recently added to growing evidence that increased levels of the omega-3 can significantly lower the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Other mental conditions studied for links with omega-3 deficiency are bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression and stress.
 
Children also have gained immensely with a diet high in EFA’s. Brain related conditions are emerging at an astonishing rate in our youth.  The US Surgeon General announced that 1 in 10 American children currently suffer with a psychiatric illness and ADHD is becoming epidemic through out North America affecting 3-6% of school age children.  Dr Michael Lyon, author of Is Your Child’s Brain Starving? Food Not Drugs for Life and Learning, said that“80% of kids with ADHD have serious deficiencies in omega-3 acids”

A Purdue University study also has shown that kids low in Omega-3 essential fatty acids are significantly more likely to be hyperactive, have learning disorders and aggression, and to display behavioural problems.

If all that wasn’t enough, research is aggressively continuing on Omega 3 and its effects on prostrate cancer. According to International Journal of Cancer slashing the risk by 43%.

Omega 9 is a third fatty acid that is needed for health. The Omega 9 is found in monounsaturated fats, another “good” fat, that include olive oil, canola oil, avocados, nuts such as pistachios, pecans and peanuts. They differ from polyunsaturated fats in that they are liquid at room temperature but solidify in the cold.

Omega 9 acids, although valuable, are considered non-essential because the body is able to make from other fats.

Healthy oils are essential to our well-being, but are much more temperamental than you may expect. Light, air and heat can destroy them and make them unusable by the body. For that reason they are not good choices for cooking and frying, and once opened should be kept in the refrigerator to protect from turning rancid.  Seeds should be ground just before use whenever possible, and nuts should always be raw, not roasted, salted or flavored.

Aside from being consumed in their natural form, these oils are becoming readily available in either capsules or liquid form.

With Canadian diet being higher in corn, sunflower and safflower oils, sources of Omega 6, the focus should be on bringing Omega 3 back into the diet. To help lessen the confusion, quality manufacturers are producing good supplements that already balance out the ratio of all these different oils and are available and local health food stores.

According to Canadian, Udo Erasmus, PhD, the industry’s leading authority on EFA’s and author of the groundbreaking book, Fats that Heal Fats That Kill which has became the industry's bible on fats, “EFAs are major nutrients. We need them in tablespoon, not milligram, amounts each day”

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The Big Fat Story Continues

You can’t pick up a magazine or turn on the evening news without being informed of another new report warning of the dangers of fats.

Time and time again, however, these stories miss an important point; they don’t specify which fats
Previously we began looking at fats; what are they and does the body really need them.

Essential Fatty Acids, with more emphasis on the Omega 3 fatty acid, have been found to be critically important to health and healing for countless ailments.
However, there is still more to this big fat story.
 
Saturated fats have also been living in a cloud of confusion for years, getting a dirty reputation it may not deserved
.
Saturated fats are solid at room temperature. They are found mainly in animal products such as butter, cheese, whole milk, cream and fatty meats. Some vegetable oils-namely coconut, palm and palm kernel also contain saturated fats.
They are a completely naturally occurring fat that your body can process and your body needs.

Believe it or not, as Omega 3 fats are the fat the body prefers to build the brain with, saturated fats are the food choice of heart tissue. This is why the fat around the heart muscle is highly saturated. The heart draws on this reserve of fat in times of stress.
Cell membranes also consist of Saturated Fatty Acids. It is the saturated fats that give our cells necessary stiffness and integrity.

Saturated fats play a vital role in the health of our bones. For calcium to be effectively incorporated into the skeletal structure, some experts suggest that at least 50% of the dietary fats should be saturated. It protects the liver from alcohol and other toxins, and enhances the immune system. Saturated fats are used by the body for fuel and, as part of a meal, slow down absorption so that we can go longer without feeling hungry.

They are needed for the proper utilization of essential fatty acids.  So now that you have begun to increase your daily intake of EFA’s, you would still not be able to receive all the benefits if it were not for a healthy level of saturated fats.
In addition, they act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Saturated fats are needed for the conversion of carotene to vitamin A, for mineral absorption and for a host of other processes.

Coconut oil, which is a saturated fat, is packed with health benefits acting as an antiviral and antifungal, protecting the body from parasites and a host of other creepy crawlies.

In my own home, coconut oil has become a staple, being used from frying and baking, to an eczema treatment, deodorant and hair conditioner.

All this being said, however, saturated fats are not essential in that they need to be obtained exclusively from the diet. The liver is able to make saturated fats out of starch and sugars and saturated fats can be found in natural combinations with some of the essential fatty acids, fish oils for example.  So although, saturated fats are needed, your focus on which fats to consume should still remain in the direction of essential fatty acids.

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Cholesterol - Do We Owe Saturated Fats an Apology?

Saturated fat is the fat commonly found in animal products, mainly meat and dairy along with some vegetable oils such as coconut and palm.
They are a natural fat, one that the body recognizes, needs, uses and can even make.

So how is it that something naturally created, and created in our very own bodies gotten such a shady reputation?

The controversy focuses around a substance found within this fat called cholesterol.
Cholesterol is a versatile compound that is vital to the function of the human body and essential for life.

It is a waxy, fat-like substance carried in the blood stream and is found in every cell of the body. It is used to make hormones, build cell walls, fight infections, insulates neurons and produce bile acid.

Mother's milk provides a higher proportion of cholesterol than almost any other food. It also contains over 50% of its calories as fat much of it being saturated fat. Both cholesterol and saturated fat are essential for growth in babies and children, especially the development of the brain. (This would explain why an egg has so much cholesterol)

Your liver can produce all the cholesterol the body needs. The body, proving its brilliance once again, can even regulate its cholesterol production in relation to your cholesterol consumption. Simply meaning if your diet is high in cholesterol your liver makes little, if your diet is low, your liver makes more.  (Makes one question the point of cholesterol lowering drugs, doesn’t it?).

50 years or so ago, however, cholesterol got a slam! It became labelled the “artery clogger”!  The beast that is single-handedly responsible for plaque that lines the artery walls contributing to coronary heart disease.

Fortunately for cholesterol, the world around us paints a different picture.

Researchers point out that many primitive cultures have diets largely consisting of animal fats but none suffer from chronic degenerative diseases.

The Eskimos thrived for hundreds of years on a 100% meat diet with lots of saturated fat. The Masai, a warrior tribe in east Africa, live on blood and milk with no heart disease.

North American Plaines Indians did the same on buffalo pemmican consisting of 75% fat.

Figures from the World Health Organization also make us think twice. The countries with the highest saturated fat consumption, Austria, France, Finland and Belgium, had the lowest rate of deaths from heart disease. While those with the lowest consumption Georgia, Ukraine and Croatia, had the highest mortality rate from heart disease.
What of the Japanese? Between 1958 and 1999, they doubled their protein intake, ate 400 per cent more fat and their cholesterol levels went up by 20 per cent. Did they drop like flies? No. Their stroke rate, which had been the highest in the world, was now seven times lower, while the deaths from heart attacks, fell by 50 per cent.
As a final example, let us consider the French. Anyone who has eaten his way across France knows that the French diet is just loaded with saturated fats in the form of butter, eggs, cheese, cream, liver, meats and rich pâtés. Yet the French have a lower rate of coronary heart disease than many other western countries.

In the United States, 315 of every 100,000 middle-aged men die of heart attacks each year; in France the rate is 145 per 100,000. In the Gascony region, where goose and duck liver form a staple of the diet, this rate is a remarkably low 80 per 100,000. This phenomenon has recently gained international attention as the French Paradox.
But you don't need to look at foreign countries to find paradoxes - the biggest one is right here at home. Women are about 300 per cent less likely to suffer heart disease than men, even though on average they have higher cholesterol levels.

Statistics confirm that more than 60% of all heart attacks occur in people with normal cholesterol levels, and the majority of people with high cholesterol never suffer heart attacks.

In 2004, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a comprehensive look at fats and shockingly stated, “that a higher saturated fat intake is associated with less progression of coronary artery disease”

One of the most reputed studies began in 1948, involving some 6,000 people in Framingham, Massachusetts. Two groups were compared at five-year intervals-those who consumed little cholesterol and saturated fat and those who consumed large amounts. After 40 years, the director of this study had to admit "In Framingham, Mass, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the person's serum cholesterol became.” This outstanding new data is rising to the forefront more and more. 

So with inconsistencies abound, is cholesterol off the hook?  Who would be the next suspects in line?

Most importantly, how is this going to affect you and what you are putting on your table tonight?

These questions go under the spotlight next time we walk the natural path.

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Though heart disease was recently "dethroned" as the leading cause of death in the United States (cancer now gets that title), it still represents a major hurdle to North America’s health.  Still very real, however, claiming more lives than the rest of major causes of death, close to 900,000 Americans in 2004, according to the American Heart Association.

But with more and more doubt been shed on the cholesterol as the solitary cause of heart disease, what other factors could be to blame?

It is easy to understand how the focus has fallen on cholesterol. One of the important jobs of cholesterol is rebuilding the integrity of the cell, being the “super-glue” that holds the cell together.  According to Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, author of “The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease” and a leading expert on the relationship between cholesterol and health, the real situation occurs when the delicate lining of the arteries become inflamed, irritated and burned. The body, always working to heal and restore itself, sends cholesterol in to control the damage, coating the damaged artery like a scar, or as we have come to call it, plaque. It is this build-up of plaque that impairs blood circulation and paves the way to heart disease and other chronic illnesses.
The American Heart Association agrees. They’ve found that people with heart disease all have one factor in common, and it isn’t high cholesterol. It’s inflammation in their arteries.

Doctors and researchers alike are now taking a more preventive view and exploring the cause of this inflammation that the body is responding to.

Also discovered that inflammation of the arteries has been strongly connected to fats that have specifically been damaged by heat, such as frying or deep-frying; and unnatural treatments, such as refining and hydrogenation.  Upon actual evaluation of the fat in artery clogs reveals that only about 26% is saturated. The rest is unsaturated, of which more than half is polyunsaturated.

Specifically, polyunsaturated fats are the fats found in refined vegetable oils, sunflower, corn, soy, safflower, canola, which in modern times are used in excess, in everyday products ranging from margarine to baked goods to snack foods
William E.Code MD, from British Columbia, in Youth Renewed explains simply “Because your body doesn’t know what to do with the trans-fats it often dumps them into bile or into arteries, where they may be the start of atherosclerotic plaques.”
Dr David Williams in his renowned newsletter ALTERNATIVES, offers yet another suggestion; calling for a reduction in acidic food and an increase in intake of B vitamins. Dr Williams states the cause of inflammation in the arteries is homocysteine, an acid-like waste product that forms when you eat acidic foods. Homocysteine is quickly broken down by certain B vitamins; so not usually a problem. However, if a person isn’t getting enough of these B vitamins (a widespread and disturbing problem in our country), then homocysteine builds up to dangerous levels and “burns” the delicate tissue of artery walls. Plaque is then formed at the site of this inflammation as the body attempts to heal the damage.

The American Heart Association, has echoed this concern, pointing out that several studies found that higher blood levels of B vitamins are related, at least in part, to lower concentrations of homocysteine. And that other evidence shows that low blood levels of folic acid are linked with a higher risk of fatal coronary heart disease and stroke. The AHA recommends “that patients at high risk should be strongly advised to be sure to get enough folic acid and vitamins B-6 and B-12 in their diet. They should eat fruits and green, leafy vegetables daily.”

So what does this mean for saturated fats and high cholesterol foods?  Are they in the clear? Saturated fats and cholesterol are not scary. Don’t forget your body needs them. However, your body can also make them.  However, the standard North American diet is abundant in saturated fat and cholesterol to the point of excess. As we change our direction to pursue abundant health the focus now must be on balancing the deficiency in other necessary fats such as omega 3 fatty acids.

Canada’s fat expert and author, Udo Erasmus, PhD simplified it in his book Fats that Heal Fats That Kill; ”The more hard fats you eat, the more essential fatty acids you need to override their effects. Don't be paranoid about them, but don't eat a w hole lot of them”.

Next time we take an honest look at the most sinister player in the fat drama…the trans-fat.

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We have begun to demystify the crazy world of nutritional fats. In the past few weeks we have begun to understand that not all fats are bad. We have learned that there are some fats the body makes, such as saturated fats and that some fats, Essential Fatty Acids specifically Omega 3’s, the body desperately relies on us to provide.

These fats all have a very crucial role in the health of our bodies cells, and when that place is left void and unnourished, our health is jeopardized.

At the other end of the health spectrum from the natural fats are the trans-fats.  These, however, are the dirty villains in the fat world.

Trans-fats are rigid and difficult for the body to process. In trans-fats the fat molecules have been chemically transformed so that the body cannot identify them as natural fats. If the body doesn't recognize them, chances are its not going to know how to process them efficiently or effectively.

In Healthy Fats for Life, by Lorna R. Vanderhaeghe, BSc and Karlene Karst, BSc, RD, trans-fats are explained, “Trans- fats were developed during the backlash against saturated fats. They are man made, formed by a process of high temperatures and hydrogenation that turns refined oils into margarines, shortenings and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, making them solid or semi-solid and shelf stable. Our bodies cannot recognize them as nutrients and therefore are not able to process them. They are however, a food manufacturers dream as they are inexpensive to produce and extend shelf life of foods. While there has been much debate over whether saturated fats are worse, harmful trans-fats are not naturally occurring while saturated fats are.” It is in the hydrogenation process that a vegetable oil reacts under pressure with hydrogen gas at 250 - 400oF for several hours in the presence of a catalyst such as nickel or platinum.  This alters the fats on a molecular level, creating mutated compounds, which are absolutely detrimental to health. The heat treatment alone is enough to render these oils nutritionally inadequate. When the massive chemical treatment is added, the end product can hardly be called either natural or healthy.

Problems in areas such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, immunity, reproduction and lactation, cellular functions, degenerative diseases and obesity have been directly to connected to trans-fats in countless studies. They are believed to interfere with the body's ability to efficiently process good fats

 In fact it was way back in July 2002, the Institute of Medicine, a division of the National Academy of Science, released a report strongly declaring there are no safe levels of trans fats and the consumption should be reduced as much as possible.
Trans-fats appear in many processed, fried and fast foods.  According to the Federal Drug and Food Administration more than 40% of the products on the grocery store shelves, including 95% of the cookies, 75% of the salty snacks and chips and almost half of all cold cereals. Labelling laws have begun to take effect in both the United States and Canada, requiring consistent and detailed labelling of all fats on almost all packaged foods

The FDA hopes that these labelling changes would prompt changes in eating habits that would save at least $1 billion in annual health care costs by preventing 6,400 cases of heart disease per year and at least 2,100 deaths, in the US alone
In Canada, the Heart and Stroke Foundation estimates that consumption of trans fat accounts for 3,000 to 5,000 Canadian deaths from heart disease annually.
However, even with the help of labelling laws, one must still be skilful.  Bantransfats.com offer these hints:

1. When purchasing food products, look for the words “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” or shortening. Even if a product says “Tran-fat Free”, be suspicious. In Canada if a serving has less than 0.2 grams of trans fat, it can be labelled as zero. 
2. Be careful when consuming products with labels from outside the US or Canada. Sometimes they contain partially hydrogenated oil but it's not on the label.
3. In restaurants, bakeries, and other eateries, ask whether they use partially hydrogenated oil for frying or baking or in salad dressings. If they say they use vegetable oil, ask whether it is partially hydrogenated. Don't be shy about asking. Assume that all unlabeled baked and fried goods contain partially hydrogenated oil, unless you know otherwise.

In June 2007, Canadian Federal Health Minister Tony Clement asked food companies to voluntarily reduce trans fats from their products within two year. He said Ottawa would not adopt recommendations to establish regulatory trans fat limits by June 2008. But public health officials in Calgary said they would push ahead with a plan to ban trans fat in restaurants by October 2008, which would be a first in Canada.

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